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Rh The railway employés support one-twentieth of the entire population, and most of their associations maintain organizations to provide their members with relief and insurance. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railway Conductors of America, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, the Brotherhood of Railway Trackmen, the Switchmen’s Union, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and the Order of Railway Telegraphers, all have relief and benefit features. The oldest and largest of these is the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, founded at Detroit in August 1863. Like other labour organizations of the higher class of workmen, the objects of the brotherhoods of railway employés are partly social and partly educational, but in addition to these great purposes they seek to protect their members through relief and benefit features. Of course the relief departments of the railway companies are competitors of the relief and insurance features of the railway employés orders, but both methods of providing assistance have proved successful and beneficial.

For a history of the various American organizations, see Albert C. Stevens, The Cyclopaedia of Fraternities (New York, 1899); Facts for Fraternalists, published by the Fraternal Monitor, Rochester, N.Y.; for annual statements, “The World Almanac,” “Railway Relief Departments,” “Brotherhood Relief and Insurance of Railway Employés,” “Mutual Relief and Benefit Associations in the Printing Trade,” “Benefit Features of American Trade Unions,” Bulletins Nos. 8, 17, 19 and 22 of the U.S. Department of Labour.

FRIENDS, SOCIETY OF, the name adopted by a body of Christians, who, in law and general usage, are commonly called . Though small in number, the Society occupies a position of singular interest. To the student of ecclesiastical history it is remarkable as exhibiting a form of Christianity widely divergent from the prevalent types, being a religious fellowship which has no formulated creed demanding definite subscription, and no liturgy, priesthood or outward sacrament, and which gives to women an equal place with men in church organization. The student of English constitutional history will observe the success with which Friends have, by the mere force of passive resistance, obtained, from the legislature and the courts, indulgence for all their scruples and a legal recognition of their customs. In American history they occupy an important place because of the very prominent part which they played in the colonization of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The history of Quakerism in England may be divided into three periods:—(1) from the first preaching of George Fox in 1647 to the Toleration Act 1689; (2) from 1689 to the evangelical movement in 1835; (3) from 1835 to the present time.

1. Period 1647–1689.—George Fox (1624–1691), the son of a weaver of Drayton-in-the-Clay (now called Fenny Drayton) in Leicestershire, was the founder of the Society. He began his public ministry in 1647, but there is no evidence to show that he set out to form a separate

religious body. Impressed by the formalism and deadness of contemporary Christianity (of which there is much evidence in the confessions of the Puritan writers themselves) he emphasized the importance of repentance and personal striving after the truth. When, however, his preaching attracted followers, a community began to be formed, and traces of organization and discipline may be noted in very early times. In 1652 a number of people in Westmorland and north Lancashire who had separated from the common national worship, came under the influence of Fox, and it was this community (if it can be so called) at Preston Patrick which formed the nucleus of the Quaker church. For two years the movement spread rapidly throughout the north of England, and in 1654 more than sixty ministers went to Norwich, London, Bristol, the Midlands, Wales and other parts. Fox and his fellow-preachers spoke whenever opportunity offered,—sometimes in churches (declining, for the most part, to occupy the pulpit), sometimes in barns, sometimes at market crosses. The insistence on an inward spiritual experience was the great contribution made by Friends to the religious life of the time, and to thousands it came as a new revelation. There is evidence to show that the arrangement for this “publishing of Truth” rested mainly with Fox, and that the expenses of it and of the foreign missions were borne out of a common fund. Margaret Fell (1614–1702), wife of Thomas Fell (1598–1658), vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and afterwards of George Fox, opened her house, Swarthmore Hall near Ulverston, to these preachers and probably contributed largely to this fund.

Their insistence on the personal aspect of religious experience made it impossible for Friends to countenance the setting apart of any man or building for the purpose of divine worship to the exclusion of all others. The operation of the Spirit was in no way limited to time, or individual or place. The great stress which they laid upon this aspect of Christian truth caused them to be charged with unbelief in the current orthodox views as to the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the person and work of Christ, a charge which they always denied. Contrary to the Puritan teaching of the time, they insisted on the possibility, in this life, of complete victory over sin. Robert Barclay, writing some twenty years later, admits of degrees of perfection, and the possibility of a fall from it (Apology, Prop. viii.). Such teaching necessarily brought Fox and his friends into conflict with all the religious bodies of England, and they were continually engaged in strife with the Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Episcopalians and the wilder sectaries, such as the Ranters and the Muggletonians. The strife was often conducted on both sides with a zeal and bitterness of language which were characteristic of the period. Although there was little or no stress laid on either the joys or the terrors of a future life, the movement was not infrequently accompanied by most of those physical symptoms which usually go with vehement appeals to the conscience and emotions of a rude multitude. It was owing to these physical manifestations that the name “Quaker” was either first given or was regarded as appropriate when given for another reason (see Fox’s Journal concerning Justice Bennet at Derby in 1650 and Barclay’s Apology, Prop. 11, § 8). The early Friends definitely asserted that those who did not know quaking and trembling were strangers to the experience of Moses, David and other saints.

Some of the earliest adherents indulged in extravagances of no measured kind. Some of them imitated the Hebrew prophets in the performance of symbolic acts of denunciation, foretelling or warning, going barefoot, or in sackcloth or undress, and, in a few cases, for brief periods, altogether naked; even women in some cases distinguished themselves by extravagance of conduct. The case of James Nayler (1617?–1660), who, in spite of Fox’s grave warning, allowed Messianic homage to be paid to him, is the best known of these instances; they are to be explained partly by mental disturbance, resulting from the undue prominence of a single idea, and partly by the general religious excitement of the time and the rudeness of manners prevailing in the classes of society from which many of these individuals came. It must be remembered that at this time, and for long after, there was no definite or formal membership or system of admission to the society, and it was open to any one by attending the meetings to gain the reputation of being a Quaker.

The activity of the early Friends was not confined to England or even to the British Isles. Fox and others travelled in America and the West India Islands; another reached Jerusalem and preached against the superstition of the monks; Mary Fisher (fl. 1652–1697), “a religious maiden,” visited Smyrna, the Morea and the court of Mahommed IV. at Adrianople; Alexander Parker (1628–1689) went to Africa; others made their way to Rome; two women were imprisoned by the Inquisition at Malta; two men passed into Austria and Hungary; and William Penn, George Fox and several others preached in Holland and Germany.

It was only gradually that the Quaker community clothed itself with an organization. The beginning of this appears to be due to William Dewsbury (1621–1688) and George Fox; it was not until 1666 that a complete system of church organization